by Sam Tackeff | Nov 11, 2020 | Uncategorized
A short list tonight – while today was a low key day, I find myself completely exhausted by 9pm.
- Today is Veteran’s Day. Thank you to all my friends, acquaintances, and family who have served. This year has been particularly meaningful because of our work with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Getting to give back to those who have served every day of the year is now a reality.
- A socially distanced walk with my friend Daria.
- *Do The Thing Hour. We got things done!
- Picking up my farm share. Curiously low on actual vegetables (you get to pick your own items each week), but I did make the smart choice of ordering fresh tuna for tonight’s dinner.
- My CRAW (Circumpolar Race Around the World) team is reaching the end of our first leg of the world. Through Mexico down to Panama. We’ll likely be done tomorrow – then on to the next leg!
That’s all today. Hope you are all getting some well needed rest this week.
xo, Sam.
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 11, 2020 | Uncategorized
Today I spent 30 minutes breaking down cardboard. I’ve developed a cardboard mountain near my front door, which has been building steadily as I grow uneasy looking at it every time I leave the house.
Tackling cardboard is one of my least favorite activities. You have to break it down, rip it up into pieces to fit it into the recycling bin. It’s a physical, exhausting task. Alternately, you can fit a ton of it into a big trunk, and haul it to the recycling center, but now you have to make an appointment in advance – which is a second layer of ordeal.
I’m sure there are people who are just effortlessly able to do these kinds of nagging tasks that require a few different steps in order to complete the task. I am not one of them. Here are a few of the ways I deal with this and other things like it.
- Keep a running list of nagging tasks.
- Schedule in a time of week where I complete the first step of a nagging task.
- Hold a weekly *Do the Thing hour on Wednesday where folks often complete these things together. (I’m looking at you phone calls to insurance, switching licenses, and doing PT exercises!)
- Ask a friend to hold me accountable to my task (shout out to Courtney who texted me reminders)
- Break down the task into a small action. What can I do to get started in 10 or 30 minutes?
- Pair the task with a positive thing: in this case, I put in an audio book, pulled out the boxes outside into the driveway in the sun and got to work.
- Reinforced positive feedback loop by literally writing a tweet giving myself a gold star, and then writing this blog post patting myself on the back. (You need to get your dopamine somewhere.)
What’s on your list? Please let me encourage you (and give you a gold sticker!)
by Sam Tackeff | Nov 9, 2020 | Uncategorized
52 days left in 2020. Still room to breathe and grow.
Good Things Today: a warm welcome to a new team member at Ompractice! We have *three* new wonderful humans starting in the next several weeks. My heart is full. A 30 minute cycling session, a quick run and walk around the neighborhood, and Yoga Therapy class. Movement! Salmon and roasted zucchini with the new green goddess dip from Trader Joes (great!) Two new episodes of the Mandalorian. I had forgotten the squee level of cuteness of the kid since the fall.
I was glancing through my 2019 year in review, wide-eyed at how different 2020 has been. While I’ve not been able to do some of the things that I love to do most: notably travel, watch movies in the theater, and eat great things out of the house, the venn diagram of things that make me happy and things that I can do at home has great overlap.
With some more space to think, I’m looking at making the most of my next 52 days: doing good meaningful work, moving my body, watching movies, reading, catching up on a little bit of television (my tv has been off most of the year), cooking, home projects, and trying some new things.
After three years of committed solo creative dates (my riff on Artist’s Dates) that were mostly out of the house (lots of museum visits! films! travel!), the first half of 2020 was an absolute fail. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to buckle down and rethink prioritizing these things for myself instead of giving up on the practice because of the times.
There are a little more than 7 weeks left in the year, I’d like to use this time to re-think my creative inputs and set myself up for a good 2021. So far:
- Week 1: While it’s still unseasonably warm, sit out on the porch with my coffee mug, my blanket, notebooks and a good pen, and refresh my lists, and write out my 52 list prompts for 2021. Bonus points for actually updating them on the blog.
- Week 2: Update my “rolodex” a.k.a. it’s an Airtable with the current addresses of folks I’d like to send mail to. Get my holiday cards printed, and start sending them out! Take a walk across the street and acquire a new set of glorious stamps.
- Week 3: re-charge my DSLR battery and take that sucker out for a long past due spin around the neighborhood. Aim for a “texture walk” since I’m assuming that by that point the flowers are going to be long gone and the leaves are probably going to be taking their… leave for the season.
- Week 4: acquire an inappropriate number of new houseplants.
Also, I learned that Tina Turner practices meditation today.
xo, Sam
